


Facing Forward, Looking Back

by Dragonomatopoeia (IntelligentAirhead)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: COUNTER/Weight - Freeform, Canonical Character Death, F/F, FatT Femslash Week, FatT Femslash Week 2018, Memory Loss, Moving On, Second Impressions/Stealing Time Prompt, Takes place during the finale, Though there's a flashback to pre-series, but she gets better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 23:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15423786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntelligentAirhead/pseuds/Dragonomatopoeia
Summary: Jacqui Green has never been a fan of hypotheticals. She'd rather be given a problem with a practical, direct solution, any day. It's too bad that the what-if situation of her nightmares just walked straight into political talks with her girlfriend.Remembering hurts. Forgetting is worse. Even so, the world keeps turning, the universe keeps expanding, and Jacqui keeps moving forward.





	Facing Forward, Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

> Happy FatT femslash week! Very sorry that every time I try to write counter/weight Sad comes pouring out of me! Hope you enjoy anyway! 
> 
> Also, this takes place during the Counter/Weight finale, so spoilers for that.

There was this one show— this one, fucking terrible show— that Jillian used to love to pieces. Jacqui had watched a few episodes with her, once. The writing kinda sucked, the line deliveries were wooden, and the main character was a dickhead, but well... The secondary lead’s smile was breathtaking, Aria Joie sang the theme song, Jillian liked it, and Jacqui was gay enough that it all kind of balanced out in the end.

The premise had been interesting enough, at first. Had promise. The main character woke up every day at a random point in the past— never knew if they’d lost a few hours, a few days, or even a decade, until they checked the mesh each morning. The series started in media res, at the point where they’d stopped checking, but it gave the occasional flashback of them frantically trying to stay awake, of writing desperate notes to the future, of trying almost anything to keep themself in the present.

Three episodes in, Jacqui was bored as shit and didn’t want to watch anymore. Jillian stuck with it though. Would occasionally throw questions back at Jacqui as she watched.

“What would you do?” She had asked, once, turning to cross her arms on the back of the couch. She had a habit of hiding behind it, a bit. Most times that she did that Jacqui would bend down and kiss her forehead or sweep her hair back from her face.

That time, though, Jacqui had stayed in the kitchen. She’d been cooking dinner; that she remembered. Wasn’t so sure about what, exactly, she’d been cooking. Gyoza, maybe. Jillian used to love them.

Still loved them?

Whatever. It didn’t matter. The fact of it was that Jillian hadn’t elaborated on her question.

“If I ended up in the past?” Jacqui had shrugged. “Punch whoever needed to be punched. Detonate some explosives. Do what I could. Days don’t change much.” Not for them, anyway.

“Okay, fair,” Jillian had said, sighing. “But I wasn’t talking about that.” She looked back at the images, frozen, that she’d been watching. “Just… What would you do if I didn’t remember you?”

Jacqui had laughed at that.

She’d laughed. Like fate hadn’t made it clear enough that it was always, always going to get itself off to their collective misery, like it was a joke. A fairytale.

“It’s always been us,” Jacqui had said, finally, still grinning. “You and me. If you couldn’t recognize me, someone, somewhere fucked up.”

Jillian had grumbled about thought experiments and Jacqui being no fun, but she’d also made room for her on the couch, and that had been the end of that.

Until it wasn’t.

Life wasn’t a fairytale. Jacqui couldn’t predict the ending from miles away, couldn’t guess the twist from the beginning, couldn’t make the shape of the narrative arc out, couldn’t go back in time to a day when her girlfriend was sitting on the couch. Jac and Jill hadn’t fetched what they were supposed to, and Jill had been the one to fall.

Jacqui refused to tumble after.

She really thought she’d been okay. She and Jillian had known one day one of them would bite it; they’d been prepared for it. They’d figured things out by then: there weren’t happy endings—  not for them— and life wasn’t a fairytale.

Or, it hadn’t been. Things got confusing when Aria got involved. She was— hell, she was sunshine. She was a blue sky, looking so, so close but impossibly far away. She took a person by the hand and breathed life— breathed _hope_ —  into them. Her songs were dangerous things because of it, anthems that shined and brought out emotions that Jac— that _people_ thought they’d lost.

She was the sky: a dangerous, beautiful thing where people could too easily fall. And Jacqui knew better. Or, she thought she did.

Life wasn’t a fairytale. It wasn’t. But she was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, there was a bit more magic to it than expected.

Which, of course, meant life had to turn around and bare all, revealing that it had been a soap opera all along, complete with Jacqui’s presumed dead ex-girlfriend strolling in to debate politics with her current girlfriend, so that was just fucking fantastic, really.

It didn’t set in at first. The hair was new. The clothes… Well, styles changed, and so had Jillian, apparently. But her face was the same.

Psychological warfare. Common enough in politics. Use the face of a dead girlfriend to make a statement. It’d make more sense than reviving the dead, even if it did make Jacqui want to throw something.

But when Jill spoke… That was her. There couldn’t be anyone like Jill. She was fire and strength, and the way her eyes flashed when she really, really meant something was the same as always, and Jacqui could barely breathe, but she had a job to do, and that was protecting her girlfriend. Protecting Aria. She’d trained too hard, was too determined to defend this small thing that might become a happy ending, to risk it all now.

But that didn’t mean she could lock off the part of her that was screaming every time Jillian glanced at her with nothing in her expression but vague interest. That didn’t mean she wasn’t holding back the furious, angry thing in her chest demanding to know where Jillian had been, if she’d known how badly Jacqui had _hurt,_ if she’d even cared. That didn’t mean Jacqui hadn’t bristled when Jillian had accused Aria of— of all things— _playing_ revolutionary.

Aria, who’d given all she could give and never backed down. Aria, who had _been there,_ who fought to stay, who fought for that impossible happy ending for everyone. Aria, who’d always come back.

Had Jillian even thought of coming back?

Aria was busy, after the meeting. She was always busy. Wasn’t a bad thing, especially considering the things at stake, but it tended to be a lonely thing. Just then, when all Jacqui wanted to do was rush down the hall after Jillian and demand answers, it was a damned good thing.

Didn’t mean Jacqui could afford to be too loud about it, though. She took her time. Stepped around important people. Nodded at the ones she had to. But she didn’t let anyone stop her. Hell, she wasn’t sure Aria would have been able to stop her, just then.

Jacqui wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to say to Jillian, when she caught up, but she was sure it’d be hard and angry and accusatory. She expected the words to drip like lighter fluid, or to hit like shrapnel. She didn’t expect the slow, shaky, “Jill,” that fell from her mouth like a weight. Like a flightless bird. Like someone falling and hitting the ground.

Fuck.

Jillian looked back, eyes curious. She used to have— fuck, _still_ had— a way of looking at things she was curious about. It was like she was convinced she could figure anything out if she could just get her hands on it.

It had been a long, long time since Jacqui had been on the receiving end of that look.

Jillian’s hired muscle—  as if she needed any— shot Jacqui an appraising glance, grin wide and a little too sharp. She was obviously gearing up for some fun. Jacqui could empathize. Politics made her restless, too.

Jillian squeezed the girl’s arm, though. As clear a dismissal as any. Not much a soldier could do to counter that; Jillian would know that better than anyone.

“Moved up in the world, huh?” No one could say Jacqui hadn’t tried, but the anger was too thick and pungent to mask. It seeped through her words.

Jillian cracked a smile like a broken window.

“Someone’s pissed at me.” She shook her head. “Not sure what I did to deserve it, though. Other than embarrass your boss a little, anyway.” She laughed. “Trust me, she’ll be fine. She’s a tough—”

“I know.” Jacqui cut her off, words sharp. They weren't going to talk about Aria. “I know.”

“Ah,” The sound rolled with the careful, casual precision of a bullet being loaded into a chamber. “So that’s how it is.” Jillian always _was_ quick on the uptake. She tsked. “Shame. You really are my type.”

“Don’t!” The command came out strangled. “Don’t pretend that— Don’t, or I swear I’m gonna break something.”

Jillian smiled, same curious expression in her eyes, and it was all Jacqui could do not to just run away from that awful hallway and its stifling meeting rooms and just keep running until it was just her and the pounding of her feet against the cement and her and the horizon and her and a giant ball of flame in the middle of nowhere because that was the closest she’d ever get to putting the way she felt out into the world, no matter how many songs she helped Aria with.

“I’ll be honest,” Jillian started, and it burned because when had Jillian stopped being honest? When had she become something other than a force or blazing sincerity? “I’m not sure what you want from me.”

Now if that wasn’t the winning question. What did Jacqui want? What could she possibly get from this burning shitheap of a conversation? Closure? Acknowledgement?

“Just a— Shit.” Jacqui took a moment to breathe. “Some sign that any of it meant something to you, I guess,” She said. “Or at least, half as much as it meant to me.”

Jillian blinked, looking genuinely taken aback for the first time since she was asked to come up with a slogan. Point to Jacqui. A grim victory.

“Of course this means something to me,” Jillian said, anger seeping into her voice. Jacqui had forgotten the way it got low and slow when she was mad. “The people affected by these choices deserve a voice, and if we have the power to give them a platform, it’s our duty to do so!”

Jacqui stared at her for a long moment, then laughed. It wasn’t a happy sound. “You really have no clue what I’m talking about, do you?” She shook her head. God. She wanted to press her hands to her eyes, but at this point she didn’t trust herself not to accidentally blow herself up. “Do you even recognize me?”

Hesitation. “Should I?” And damn her, she was being sincere. Jacqui knew what Jillian looked like when she was faking, and it hit her like a freight train that this wasn’t it. _This wasn’t it._

Jillian hadn’t come home because she didn’t remember that she had a home.

Jacqui closed her eyes. Life wasn’t a fairytale. But that didn’t stop irony from being a cruel bastard anyway.

Should’ve known better. So much of them both had been ripped out and replaced already. Might as well steal all their memories, all their time from them, too. Should have damn well known better.

“Nah,” Jacqui said, finally. She opened her eyes. “You don’t know me.” Not anymore. The Jillian who’d snuggled with her on the couch, who’d had her back, who’d danced with her at two in the morning was gone.

Life wasn’t a fairytale. But if it was, they’d both moved onto different chapters a long time ago.

 _“Okay,”_ Jillian said, dragging out the word. “Are we done here, then?”

“Yeah,” Jacqui said, turning around. Toward the meeting room. Toward Aria. Toward a new chapter. “We’re done.”


End file.
